“Alright then, let’s get down to the bottom line. Here are two questions. Do you like yourself … and … do you like your life?”

“So now you’re making just a teeny bit of sense. Sure. I like myself okay. I wouldn’t want to be anyone else, but it would have been fine with me if I’d never been born, too. I like being apathetic. When I’m numb I can’t feel all the pain and disappointment.”

“Would you like to be a person bubbling over with expectancy, even when life doesn’t make sense … ?”

“I have not the faintest clue what you’re talking about. That’s impossible.”

“… someone who …”

“I’m leaving …”

“Wait! I have something to say!”

“You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Who’s telling you what to do?”

“This is absurd!”

“You’re right - I can’t tell you what to do, but I CAN speak the truth in love.”

“What truth? What’s the truth about me, huh, since you know everything?”

“You’re disintegrating.”

“I’m WHAT? Man … you are C-R-A-Z-Y!”

“You heard me – you’ve been duped by lies to trust circumstances rather than what is actually true, even when your conscience tells you otherwise. You’re one way on the inside and another on the outside so you can fool yourself as well as everyone else. This is why you’re falling apart - disintegrating as a mere shadow of what you were created to be.”

“A … shadow? How would you know what I was created to be?”

“If you’d give me a chance …”

“A chance! Give you a chance? Never! Now get lost or I’ll … well, I’ll throw a fit … and they’ll put me in the psycho ward …”

“Whoa there. A fake breakdown, huh? Now that’s a very creative solution. Except you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Wha --?”

“I’ll follow you into the hospital. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. You will never escape me. Never. And once you know me, really know me, you’ll see yourself differently. You’ll begin to understand what I mean about being whole.”

“Uh …”

“You’ll be real; your thoughts, feelings, and actions will mirror what you believe and know.”

“And what does that look like?”

“Hope on the inside, hope on the outside; truthfulness on the inside, truthfulness on the outside; pain on the inside, pain on the outside; flaws on the inside, flaws on the outside. That’s what it means to be integrated rather than disintegrated.”

“How ridiculous. Why am I even listening to you? Why am I having this conversation, anyway? Who are you? What’s your name?”

I was scrolling down in such expectancy. Loved it Beth - the disdain and frustration of the one speaker came through as well as the persistency and truth-in-loveness (is that a word - ha!) of the Keeper. Thanks for sharing.